Poland: The Parliamentary Group on Autism.

In July 2006, there is going to take place the first plenary meeting of the Polish Multi-Partisan Parliamentary Group on Autism, during which members of the Group will discuss and approve the list of most important issues the Group should deal with during the following year. This Parliamentary Group on Autism came into being in April 2006 and has so far 21 members of Parliament from most major political parties. 6 additional MPs expressed their willingness to participate in the works of the Group, yet they could not participate in the first meeting of the Group when the declarations of the membership were signed. The Group in this term of the Parliament came into being thanks to the efforts of the Advocacy Department of the SYNAPSIS Foundation and its partners from the Polish branch of the United Nations Development Fund (UNDP). The Parliamentary Group on Autism was established in Poland for the first time in the former term of Parliament, in 2001, counting then 7 MPs. The inspiration for the Group has been the All Party Parliamentary Group on Autism in the Great Britain, where it has been functioning since February 2000. The British Group, unlike the Group in Poland, embraces not only MPs but also other people engaged in the question of autism. The general goals of the Parliamentary Group on Autism are: ? to campaign in Parliament for greater awareness of autism, ? to lobby the Government for improved services for people with autism and for necessary changes in legislation, ? to attract public attention to the growing problem of autism. The Parliamentary Group on Autism to a great extent will rely on initiatives and expertise of AUTISM-Poland – Alliance gathering around 40 organizations dealing with the problem of autism (and the SYNAPSIS Foundation, in particular) that will provide the Group with the concrete propositions for legislation changes and other actions. The role of the MPs will be to introduce the bills and other initiatives at the Parliamentary commissions and encourage other MPs to support them. The setting up the Parliamentary Group to deal with a specific issue seems to be a very good and potentially effective way of advocating for a particular cause. The Parliamentary Group on Autism is the only Parliamentary Group in Poland that deals with a specific disability. Two other parliamentary groups in Poland that came into being at the initiative of NGOs are Parliamentary Group for People with Disabilities (dealing with disabilities in general, yet with a focus on the physical disabilities) and Parliamentary Group on Cooperation with NGOs.